Second Yangtze warning issued on flooding peak

Residents are moved to safety on Sunday in Tongling, Anhui province, as flooding continued to affect the city and other regions in central and eastern China. [Photo by ZHAN JUN/FOR CHINA DAILY]

Authorities warned on Sunday of a second flood peak for the Yangtze River and its tributaries, with new rainstorms forecast after floods left scores of people dead and eight missing in central and eastern areas.

Flooding resulting from rainstorms that began on Thursday left 14 people dead and eight missing in Anhui, Hubei, Zhejiang, Henan and Jiangsu provinces, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said in a statement.

The floods affected 6.87 million people and destroyed 10,000 homes, the headquarters added.

The National Meteorological Center said rainstorms were expected to continue to wreak havoc in these areas until Monday, with some parts of Hubei and Hunan expected to receive total precipitation of more than 200 millimeters.

A second flood peak is expected on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and Poyang and Dongting lakes, both flood basins of the river, according to the flood control headquarters. It issued the first warning of a Yangtze flood peak on Friday.

In Hubei, rainstorms since June 18 have left 28 people dead and 14 missing. Floods caused chaos in urban and rural areas in 81 counties, with 203,200 people needing to be relocated and 222,000 requiring relief efforts from the authorities.

Flooding hit the Xinzhou district of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, particularly hard, with thousands of homes flooded and nine people killed after the banks of two rivers broke.

Liao Anhua, a 59-year-old resident of Qili village in Xinzhou, said his family had to be relocated.

He later decided to swim back to his house to fetch medicine for his parents, only to find that the floods were so strong that he was left struggling.

"I could only hold on to a wash basin that I came across in the water to stay afloat," he said.

Liao, who was rescued by a group of volunteers on a life raft, added, "I've never seen flooding on such a scale."

The Ministry of Civil Affairs and the National Commission for Disaster Relief sent a work team and 3,000 tents to help relief work in Hubei.

In Anhui, authorities upgraded the emergency response for disaster relief to the second-highest level after floods affected millions of people, according to the provincial department of civil affairs.

The authorities have sent more than 4,400 tents, 3,500 beds along with quilts and clothing to other rain-affected regions for disaster relief.

Zhu Lixin in Hefei contributed to this story.

Contact the writer at xuwei@chinadaily.com.cn.